Living as Expats in Istanbul, Turkey: When Bigger Isn’t Better
After living as American expats for three life-transforming years in the wonderful country of Vietnam, we knew it would be unlikely for us to ever again be as awed or stretched anywhere else in the world. The impetus for Mark and I to relocate to Istanbul, Turkey in the summer of 2019 was for Mark to attend a program here that would provide him a masters-level certification in teaching English as a second language and for us both to experience a different culture and new travel opportunities. Now that we are 8 months into our 1-year commitment, we can happily say that all those aspirations have been achieved!
There are many appealing aspects about living in Istanbul such as the arts scene (Arter! Bozlu Art Project! Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair!), beautiful architecture (Hagia Sophia!), friendly people, Mediterranean-style food (OMG: the Turkish breakfasts at Hadika Kahvaltı Evi!), public transportation, inexpensive apartment rentals and affordable flights to destinations throughout Europe and the Middle East.
Yet despite all this, we are ready to move on. We’re so grateful to have had the opportunity to spend an extended amount of time in this remarkable city, but it’s not a place where either of us has felt a sense of belonging or significant growth. Not to say that there hasn’t been any growth. Mark’s career and academic experiences have been very valuable. And for me, it’s been a humbling and eye-opening experience. As I reflect on our initial assumptions about what our lives would be like in Istanbul versus the reality, it’s now apparent that many of our assumptions were off-base.
Of course, no one can ever be 100% prepared for what to expect when diving into a new situation (let alone moving to a foreign country!). And we certainly wouldn’t want to be — it’s the unpredictability that educates and entertains us the most. However, in the event that our experiences may help others as they prepare for a chapter of life living as a foreigner in Istanbul, I’ve decided to share the following insights we gained during our initial eight months living in the Şişli district of Istanbul, Turkey.
Cultural Challenges
We anticipated that moving to a predominantly Muslim culture might challenge us or reshape our viewpoints. However in the internationally diverse and politically progressive area in which we live in Bomonti, Şişli, Istanbul, daily life is very Westernized. The only distinctions that set our neighborhood apart from any other big city are the beautiful sounds of the call to prayer from mosques, the approximately 25% of women in our neighborhood who cover their hair in a headscarf and the absence of alcohol from many restaurant menus. We have been made to feel very welcome as foreigners (Turkish hospitality is extraordinary!), however we have never once felt stretched outside of our comfort zones.
Friendships
In a city of more than 15 million people (for comparison, our home city of Philadelphia, USA has 1.6 and our previous residence of Da Nang, Vietnam, has 1.1 million), we assumed it would be easy to make new friends within both the local and foreigner communities. However, we didn’t anticipate the barrier of geographic scale. Although I joined a women’s group and Mark works with many terrific people at his school, the location of everyone’s homes are incredibly spread apart. It’s common to meet someone you would like to see more often only to discover that despite living in the same city, your homes are 45–70 minutes apart, depending on traffic. Therefore, get-togethers are more difficult to coordinate and the delight of chance encounters are extremely uncommon, making it difficult to forge meaningful connections. We’ve heard from our small group of Turkish friends and other foreigners who have spent years living in Istanbul that they also struggle with making lasting connections in such a big city.
Employment
For Mark, as an experienced English as a second language teacher, there were many employment opportunities, though only a few could offer a competitive wage. He was fortunate to align with an opening at a wonderful Armenian primary school before we even arrived to Turkey.
For me, with more than 15 years career experience in marketing and nonprofit management, I was optimistic that once “on the ground,” I could obtain a position relevant to my career background to supplement my existing freelance writing work. Having studied the Istanbul-based nonprofit and marketing jobs for to English speakers at Turkish companies that were constantly advertised on LinkedIn, I was also very eager for the perspectives I imagined I’d gain by working on a multicultural team. But yet again, Istanbul’s massive scale and population was a barrier. Despite the large number of advertised jobs for which my career background was a match, the number of candidates to compete against was far larger. I was discerning when deciding which jobs to apply to: only those which 100% matched my abilities, but my options were made even slimmer by my lack of a personal network in Istanbul, my need for an employer-sponsored work permit (not easy to obtain if you’re not an English teacher) and my only intermediate-level command of the Turkish language (let alone a third language, as many jobs requested). Even volunteer roles I applied for in support of Syrian refugees were turned down because I couldn’t communicate in Arabic. In a city of 15+ million people that bridges the worlds of the East and West, there’s almost always someone more suitable for the job.
Although these challenges have felt disappointing, they’ve only further accentuated how grateful we are to have been immediately welcomed into the Da Nang, Vietnam community (in large part thanks to the generosity of Elissa Le, who catalyzed both my and Mark’s introduction to our careers and the hundreds of amazing friendships we forged!). It has also shown me just how strong my feelings of purpose and belonging were when working in Philadelphia’s nonprofit community.
We are sincerely thankful to have gained a clearer perspective about our values and what drives our happiness. We now have the valuable clarity that we experience more growth and contentment when we are part of a smaller community where our usefulness is more easy to identify.
If you have lived in Istanbul, what were some of the differences between your initial assumptions and the reality you encountered? I hope you’ll share!
